


Ghosts Before Breakfast

by hyenateeth



Category: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen, M/M, Short, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I asked you what you remember, not to recite a script."</p><p>A collection of very short Ros and Guil fics that have been posted to my Tumblr, from various prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. University AU

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a 1928 Dadaist film that has nothing to do with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead but I liked it so.
> 
> All of these are very short Ros/Guil fics I have written because of prompts I have gotten in my inbox. They don't really have an overarching theme. I'm putting them together here because I don't like spamming a bunch of very short fics individually.

University is supposed to be about learning, yes, but it is also mean’t to be about forming more social ties, and Guildenstern fears they are doing quite poorly at that part. It is still just the two of them, just him and Rosencrantz.  The prince is there sometimes, just like he has been since childhood, flitting in and out of the pair’s life, but he is much better at the whole social ties thing, and is already making new friends.

All this is why he looks up at Rosencrantz, as they sit together studying, and asks “Do you think we are alone in the world?”

“What, like, just the two of us?” Asks Rosencrantz, not looking up from his philosophy book, which he is not so much reading as he is underlining every other word.

“I suppose.”

“Well, I doubt it. We had class an hour ago and I saw quite a few people there.”

“That _isn’t_ what I _meant.”_

“Oh.” Rosencrantz looks up, tapping his nose with his pen. “Well, we will have a different lecture in another 20 minutes and I suppose we can check if there are other people in the world then. If we aren’t late.” 

“Never mind.” 

“Alright. Do you want to skip out on lecture?” 

“Very well. We’d be late anyway.” 


	2. Zombie AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead (not like the movie at all) 
> 
> Alternatively titled: You'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be?

He wakes up alone, and lying in a box. He is alone, lying in a box, and he can’t remember his name. Or how he got there. 

He panics for a few minutes, because he is sure that there is no air in this box, and all he can think is oh god, I am going to die. 

Of course, he realizes after panicking for a moment, that he is alright, actually. He is doing fine without air. So let’s him self calm down and collect his thoughts. He is in a box, with no air. He must be dead. But he is awake. Can one be dead and be awake? He wouldn’t think so, but of course he hasn’t been dead before, so he can’t be sure. At least… he _thinks_ he has never been dead before.

He wonders if anyone will come and find him in this box, but if he is dead, as the evidence would seem to suggest, no one would be looking for him.

Experimentally, he hits the lid of the box. It shifts, and some dirt slips into his box. So he keeps pushing, and the lid keeps shifting, and soon he is sitting up in a shallow grave. 

“Shoddy grave work,” he mutters to himself. “Seems like they are normally supposed to prevent such a thing.”

He is distracted though, by the shallow grave next to him.

Quickly, he pushed away dirt, and bangs on the lid. “Hey,” he calls. “You in there! What’s your name? Come out of there!”

And he doesn’t know why but he giggles.

A second later a man with ruddy-blond hair and greying skin and impressive bruises around his throat, is rising from the grave.

“Rosencrantz,” he says.

“Is that your name?”

“No, it’s yours.”

“Ah!” A smile crosses Rosencrantz’s blue lips. “You must be Guildenstern then!”


	3. Things You Said After It Was Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I fuck with staging/line orders.

They hold each other’s hands in their last moments, and Rosencrantz isn’t afraid. 

He doesn’t now why he isn’t. He has been afraid this whole time. He has been afraid, been wanting a hand to hold all this time.

Well now he has one, and it feels like he has always been holding Guildenstern’s hand. Like he always will be. 

“All right, then,” he says, their hands warm, like they are one. “I don’t care. I’ve had enough. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved.”

He isn’t listening. 

“Our names shouted in a certain dawn… A message… A summons… There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said – no. But somehow we missed it.”

Its over, and Rosencrantz isn’t scared. He squeezes the hand in his. 

“Hey,” he says.  “We’ll be all right.”

Their eyes meet.  
   
Then its over. And they awake. 

“Is it over?” one of them asks.

“Is what over?” asks the other, his voice groggy, like he has been sleeping. Perhaps they have been sleeping. 

“I don’t remember.”

The bed is small and they are curled into each other. It is dark and they are warm. There is nothing else. 

“It doesn’t matter then I suppose.” 

They don’t say anything else until the man, the man banging on the shutters, letting the light in, calling their names. And they are born and christened Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and it is already over.

Their hands are still clasped together tight.


	4. "Don't throw that snowba- goddammit!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a prompt for a snowball fight and I made it WEIRD. 
> 
> Set at Wittenberg but still... in canon? Sort of?

“Rosencrantz? R- Don’t throw that snowba-”

The next second there was a rush of cold and pain as the snowball hit the side of Guildenstern’s head. “Goddammit!” he snapped, brushing the the powdery snow out of his hair. 

Out of his line of sight he heard Rosencrantz’s laughter, barely repressed, like he was trying not to seem too delighted. Guildenstern turned on him, failing to get most of the snow from his hair.

“Hello Guildenstern,” said Rosencrantz, clearly biting the inside of his cheek to keep from bursting out in another round of laughter. “You have some snow in your hair.” 

“You,” snapped Guildenstern, “Are a child. I was studying.” 

“I am not! Beside, I have been studying too. Some philosophers say there is wisdom in a child.”

“Which philosophers?”

“I cannot remember.” 

Guildenstern rolled his eyes and turned, walking away, not needing to listen to the sift sounds of Rosencrantz’s boots on the snow to know he was following.

“It is not wise to study out in the snow,” insisted Rosencrantz from behind him, long strides somehow not catching up to Guildenstern’s shorter ones. “You will freeze.”

“And you are the new expert on wisdom? The cold clears my head, when people aren’t out pelting me with snowballs like we are children.”

“Did I throw snowballs at you when we were children?” 

“Its something children do.”

“I don’t remember it.”

Guildenstern stopped short, Rosencrantz bumping into his back, knocking more of the snow out of his hair. That was… there was something wrong there, wasn’t there? When they were children-

“What do you remember from our childhood?”

“Our childhood? Well I imagine we lived in Elsinore with the lord Hamlet- our dear childhood friend-”

“I asked you what you remember, not to recite a script.” Guildenstern turned again, so he was chest to chest with Rosencrantz. “What do you remember?”

Rosencrantz didn’t say anything, smiling uneasily as he met Guildenstern’s gaze. 

Guildenstern held that gaze for a long moment before sighing and taking Rosencrantz’s hand. “You aren’t wearing gloves.”

“I forgot.”

“You did. Let’s go in.”

The snow falls soft over Wittenberg, swallowing sound. 

“Where is our dear friend the Prince Hamlet, anyway?” Rosencrantz asked him when they’re inside. His fingers were bright red and Guildenstern’s hair was wet from melted snow.  
   
“He has returned home to Elsinore.”

“Home. Our home?” 

“I don’t know.”

“Why has he returned?”

“I don’t _know_ ” snapped Guildenstern. Then: “Does it not distress you how little we remember?”

“Not particularly.”

“But-”

“I suppose between the two of us we have always been able to remember enough. That’s alright for now, isn’t it?”

Guildenstern didn’t answer, and that did not seem to bother Rosencrantz, who simply continues stripping off his heavy winter clothes. 

When he is finished, he sits on a bed - Guildenstern can not remember whose it is. “Come now,” he said. “Do you want to study together?”

Guildenstern relents.


End file.
